


Shane Comes Home

by Age or Wizardry (ageorwizardry)



Category: Shane - Jack Schaefer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ageorwizardry/pseuds/Age%20or%20Wizardry
Summary: Once I came across a book in a library catalog calledShane Comes Home, and for a moment beautiful visions unfolded in my mind of a sequel toShane, until I realized it was a completely unrelated book by a different author. I chose this title for my story.
Relationships: Shane/Joe Starrett/Marian Starrett
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Shane Comes Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onedogtown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onedogtown/gifts).



It was Shane who took Bob home from the saloon after the gunfight with Fletcher. After saying, "I'll be riding home now. And there's not a one of you that will follow," no one else in the saloon would dare to go after him or even look after him as he left, so there was no one to see as Shane discovered Bob was there and had seen the whole affair. As Shane scooped Bob up into the saddle with him and man and horse and boy traveled alone on the road, heading to only one place.

They entered the doorway together, and the astonishment they met inside was still and absolute for a long moment before it burst. Joe surged up from his seat at the table, the mark on the side of his head still livid from where Shane had knocked him out to stop him from going to meet Fletcher himself, and shouted in disbelief, "You're alive?!"

"And you're hurt!" Marian cried out, catching sight of the bloodstain turning the dark fabric of Shane's shirt darker in a slowly growing uneven patch.

From there everything whirled into action, Marian once again gathering cloths and warm water to tend to Shane's wounds, Joe helping Shane to sit down at the table (himself still unsteady, and Shane helping him nearly as much), both of them asking for the story of what happened, and Bob eagerly offering his own answers to supplement whenever he felt Shane's were incomplete.

At some point, there was a pause the rest of them realized they'd expected Bob to fill only when he didn't—his excited energy had wound down all of a sudden, and he was nodding off in his chair. Marian glanced at the two men, then nodded a quick "excuse me" as she left the table to collect Bob and carry him to bed in his room behind the kitchen.

When she returned, Joe had taken the bowl of water as though to continue her work tending Shane, but Shane stopped him. He slowly gathered his gun belt, holster, and magnificent gun together, and placed them on the table before Joe. There was something of a knight offering his sword about the gesture. Then Shane sat back in his chair, as though separating himself from the weapon entirely.

The painful tension that had been growing in him and riding him for weeks now was over. Neither did he show a trace any longer of the wild joy he took in the middle of a fight. He was still and peaceful in a way he never quite had been before, not even in the best and happiest days of the summer—a decision made, at last, and it would be final.

"It was the one thing in the world I was best at," Shane said, thoughtful, eyes still on the gun he'd laid before Joe. "The only thing I was really fit for. And when a man is that good at something," and again it seemed he was not boasting, only stating an elemental fact, "it seems like what he must be meant to do."

"Bob said you were beautiful when you fought," Marian murmured, eyes shining.

"And you were," Joe agreed. When they'd seen Shane fight before, the man was as beautiful as a bird in flight—a creature doing just what it was made for, like Shane said.

"But when the thing a man is good at doing...isn't good...even if he tries to use it for good..." His eyes shadowed with the memory of wrestling with a great weight. But the struggle was in the past now. "This needed to be done," and his finger gently tapped the table, "this here tonight. But after this—" His eyes swept up to Joe's. "I'll never carry or use this gun against your will again. I hope I may never need to do it at all. But if I do," and here Shane nodded decisively, "you'll be the one who gets to decide when. That is," he continued more nervously, "if you'll still have me here, after tonight."

Joe and Marian were sitting on either side of Shane, across the table from each other, and their hands had met across it. Shane's eyes flitted across each of their faces, then rested on their hands clasped together. His eyes slowly closed, as if in pain, or anticipation of it.

"If you think," Marian began, slowly and intensely, "that you don't already know what the answer to that question is—if you have _any_ doubts—well, then, it's just a good thing you asked us, so we can tell you the answer." With her other hand, she reached out for Shane's, held it, drew it to her face, and kissed the knuckles softly. Then she rested her cheek against the back of it, eyes closed, and her hand nestled into his.

Joe took Shane's other hand, and just after Marian's kiss, he kissed the hand he held, gentle on the soft flesh between the thumb and the first finger. His eyes shone over it as he gazed at Shane, filled with obvious joy.

Shane looked as if all the breath had been punched out of him. "Did ever anyone have two such people, indeed," he gasped out, breath shuddering and raspy.

The motion of his chest showed a fresh trickle of blood, and Marian reached for the bowl and cloths again, releasing their hands after a pat to Joe's and another quick kiss to Shane's. "Let's finish getting you cleaned up," she said, bending again to her task.

"And once we have you all patched up, if you think we're letting you go sleep in the barn again tonight, you're going to be surprised," said Joe with a warm smile. "We won't want to let you out of our sight for a good long while." He stood and held Shane's face between his hands, one of them set behind Shane's ear in almost the same place as Shane had struck him. He held him like something indescribably precious, and bent to kiss the edge of the hair on Shane's forehead.

Shane brought his hand up and placed it gently against the sore place behind Joe's ear as Joe rested his face against the crown of Shane's head, and they listened to the sound of Marian wringing the water out of a cloth before returning it to Shane's body with careful, tender fingertips. "I'll stay," Shane whispered, gentle wonder in his face. "I'll stay." They were together and it was safe and Shane was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Once I came across a book in a library catalog called Shane Comes Home, and for a moment beautiful visions unfolded in my mind of a sequel to Shane, until I realized it was a completely unrelated book by a different author. I chose this title for my story.


End file.
